There was a time when nothing might have cause to keep Lloyd away from home. But a series of unfortunate circumstances have driven Lloyd from his former refuge and comfort. New York had once been a haven to him. He had been free for so long of his family, of Jane; his inner-beast so tame it could’ve almost been forgotten.

Almost.

It can be said that Lloyd has never gone out in search of anything but peace in his entire life. He never pursued university – but the distance allowed him to break away from the chokehold Jane and Freddie had on his sense of morality. He naturally pursued law because of its ability to identify and abolish inequities in every corner of life. If something was wrong, it would be righted. Criminals were punished for their crimes.

Lloyd was culpable of so many misgivings in his youth but tried with every fiber of his soul to repair the damages that could never truly be undone. He wished to provide the world with justice, if only to adjudicate himself in the process. He convinced himself he could never personally be good – but even monsters may cause rest and ease to those who desperately need it.

To Lloyd, the world was black and white.

But to Jane, it was all shades of gray.

She soon destroyed the ethics which he stood for, forcing his compromise on every possible ground. Still, he desperately clung to what he had been taught, what he knew the world ought to be – and how he could be a productive member of society in the process.

But Jane, like the other members of his family, could never possibly allow him to forget his roots.

He was a Darrow, after all.

Fleeing from an impending doom to forever tear apart his fragile psyche, Lloyd had found comfort in manufactured normalcy. Playing the part of husband to Caitlyn and father to her two children relinquished Lloyd of so much of his burdensome guilt. And for a while, Lloyd could claim to be truly happy.

But the urges he had once so successfully staved off returned in full force, and soon Lloyd was as vicious and relentless a killer as his sister knew he could be.

What had happened the year prior in Rouen had only been a sign of what was to come. Gone was a man who at least killed those who most warranted it. Instead, the urges were sudden, harsh, his beast calling for the lifeline of any person it so deemed deserving. Jane being back played with his mind in insidious ways, and for the past month, it could be said Lloyd had gone completely mad.

The pack mentality was brutal. It always had been. But this was different. He had avoided London for so long because its proximity to his family meant a complete lack of propriety. Rather than his tamed, reserved nature came a champion of boisterousness and debauchery. It was often normal to wake up with no true recollection of the night before; as well as to still carry the scent of blood (and sometimes a bit or two of flesh between his teeth).

After so much agonizing, he had finally broken. And for better or for worse, the impending birth of his own blood children filled Lloyd not with dread as it had before, but with a sick joy. To share the beast with another, to raise his child to be a Darrow; he could think of no greater gift.

Lloyd was not the same man by any means, were it not for having the same face and name, he would be unrecognizable.

But he finally returned to London after a bender of some kind and would wander onto Arcadia’s compound in a state. His shirt had once been an immaculate white – now splattered with dark red stains of coagulated blood. His hands were in similar fashion – every inch of him, really. Though the blank pants did better at not revealing any stains. It was a wonder he’d made his way back inconspicuously. Paying no mind to the slaughtered taxi driver two blocks away, of course.

He entered the suite the Darrow’s shared with a confidence he previously lacked. e cHe sensed He sensed Noah’s presence in the living room before he walked in, the oldest step-son affixed to Sesame Street on the television. Lloyd would leave over and ruffle his hair, a bloodstained kiss plastered to the boy’s forehead. He would wander in, knowing Caitlyn milled about somewhere.

The trail of blood-stained garments would line the floor from the bedroom into the en-suite bathroom.

When the scalding water finally absolved his skin of blood – unsure of whose it collectively was, he would simply stand under the cascading water assaulting his face. Forcing him to feel normal again.

He’d have to face all he’d left behind.

This sanctuary, and the wife he leads it with.

But all paled in comparison to the one person who toyed with his fortunes like a puppet.